Guest: Nino Pollizzi. Topics: Rocket Science Tutors and the DC-X with the upcoming 20th reunion. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, https://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information.

We welcomed Nino Pollizzi back to the program to discuss his STEM outreach educational program, Rocket Science Tutors (www.rocketsciencetutors.com). Rocket Science Tutors is a program for middle school students, currently in the Santa Ana school district in Orange County, CA, to teach STEM subjects to students after school. During the first part of our program, Nino described Rocket Science Tutors in detail, starting with the all volunteer staff from within the industry and the University of California Irvine (UCI) graduate students. He described the after school problem, the need for a teacher advisor, parental approval, and the demographic of the kids enrolled in the program. He said the program has been in place for eight years and they are open to expanding it to other schools and districts around the country. In fact, he received listener questions about expanding it to St. Louis and Los Angeles. Nino said the program was ready to be replicated. He has invited interested parties to contact him about this. We talked about some of the programs and projects taught in their classes including pulleys, basic electrical systems, Ohm’s Law, parabolas, the need for algebra, and more.

In our second segment of this 1 hour 42 minute program, we talked about the DC-X as Nino worked on that program when he was with McDonnell Douglas. DC-X is having their 20th reunion this August in New Mexico, an event which Nino talked about during our discussion. We also talked about the DC-X vehicle, its problems, the plans to scale up the demo to the two more advanced models, and ultimately its cancellation and the NASA selection of the X-33. Nino also took some questions about the possibility of a single stage to orbit vehicle with a useful payload.